The most important and urgent task awaiting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who returns to the territories this week, is enforcing law and order in Gaza. Lawlessness in the Gaza Strip has reached new heights following the Israeli withdrawal, with widespread murder, kidnapping and extortion. Without law and order, one doubts it will be possible to hold elections in Gaza for the Palestinian Legislative Council, which are scheduled to take place three months from now. Preliminary elections (primaries) are set to take place within the Fatah movement in one month's time, in order to choose the movement's candidates for the general election.

At first glance, this task does not seem that involved. Public opinion in the Strip supports Abu Mazen's efforts. During the period of Israeli military presence and settlements in Gaza, the Palestinian street accepted with understanding the existence of militias and armed cells that attacked Israeli targets, and even revered their members. But after the withdrawal, the public wishes to distance itself from these militias. "There is no more Netzarim, no Gush Katif and no Philadelphi route, and no one needs you to walk around with weapons in the streets," is the message contained in a series of public statements regarding those whom the Palestinian media term "resistance fighters."

The Palestinian Authority has tens of thousands of arms-bearing men in Gaza, so if Abu Mazen has public backing, he seemingly should not have any problem meeting the demands of Israel and the rest of the world by executing, quickly and without delay, the mission of disarming the various militias.

Why, then, does he not do so? What is so complicated about this task that he hems and haws and defers it, and instead tries to appease Hamas and the members of other militias?

It turns out that things are not so simple. During the five years of the intifada, the various militias became an inseparable part of everyday life in the Strip. This is true not only of groups affiliated with Hamas and other political movements, but also of the gangs that are for all intents and purposes private armies, which do not accept any external authority. Often these are local gangs, or even the militias of large extended families.

A young person growing up in a large refugee camp such as Jabalya, Rafah, Khan Yunis or Dir al-Balah simply has nothing to do when he finishes school. He has almost no chance of finding work. Approximately 30,000 students complete their studies each year at the universities and colleges in Gaza, but only some 3,000 of them are likely to find any sort of work. Almost always, this will be a low-ranking position in a government ministry of the Palestinian Authority. There was a time when a young person from Gaza could go to work in Israel or find a job in one of the development projects that the PA had begun to build in the Strip (such as the airport, seaport, and construction of residential housing). But over the past few years, he has had almost no choice but to join gangs of young people like himself, who purport to be fighting Israel and battling corruption in the Palestinian regime. This is the only way he can find any sort of financial or social support and feel that he is worth anything. Some of these young people receive low salaries from the security organizations, and some engage in smuggling, protection rackets or other acts of a criminal nature.

Practically the only chance of finding work in Gaza is through a power group - in most instances, through the Fatah-affiliated Tanzim. Most of the acts of violence in Gaza - the kidnappings, the armed raids and the takeovers of public institutions - take place against a background of demands to the Palestinian Authority and power struggles within Fatah for money and jobs. Last week, 240 Fatah activists in Rafah announced that they were leaving the movement, offering these grounds as the reason. Similar phenomena may be found in the West Bank, but in closed-off and poverty-stricken Gaza, the situation is much more severe. Thus Abu Mazen cannot make do with issuing an order to his soldiers to dismantle the terror infrastructure. He has to alter the way of life that has taken root in the Gaza Strip over several years.